Tong Family (richtong.org sync)

I’m not sure why (maybe because of ad blockers), but two sites won’t handle ecommerce properly on my machines. I’m running Adblocker, Noscript, Ghostery so this may be the issue. I have disabled them all, but the transactions still don’t work. They do seem to work fine on Windows 7 and Firefox though. So maybe…

We have a great Osprey Talon 22 that we can use for big day hikes, but sometimes it is more like a quick two hour jaunt and it seems like overkill. So off to find a nice fanny/lumbar/hiking/trail running pack that let’s us carry say two liters of water and a phone and a flash…

After two years of loyal service, our Aquarium PC died and one of the graphics cards caught fire (as noted). We pulled it out and found the rest in good shape with the major problem being: 1. The CPU Fans (there are two of them) have always spun slowly because of viscosity of the mineral…

Crib Recommendations. (Subscription required) has a good set of recommendations. The main one is that you don’t want the older style where the sides drop (they are dangerous), so get used to hoisting your baby with a crane (:-) Some places to look and also looking at Amazon ratings Graco Lauren. This has a good…

Well our Razor mousepad seems to have just decided to start folding in on itself. Pretty inconvenient. So on to look for something better. There don’t seem to be many reviews of these things, but Amazon has a nice sort of mouse pads for gaming by rating: SteelSeries QTK+ is the highest rated at Amazon.…

Ok, our trusty Aquarium PC wouldn’t power up. It has been in mineral oil for close to three years now. Taking it out is quite a mess, but it is amazing how clean the components are. Here is what we discovered: 1. The CPU Fans on our Noctua NH-14D were burning out. there is too…

Well need to buy some monitors and it is a tough time right now. The best values are the ASUS PB27Q which is a vanilla 27″ 1440p monitor. But the 4K monitors are coming and what you really want is a 32″ 4K, but they are horribly expensive. This BenQ is a nice compromise if…

Canon U.S.A., Inc. says (this is the 93rd time that I’ve reviewed this). So obscure to use a two letter code and lower is higher for quality. And where do you get the driver? You have to actually go and install their printer driver I think. It comes with the driver. Argh! Understanding Canon ICC…

I’ve been getting a strange hang on my old iMac (24 inch early 2008 if you can believe that!). When I try to use the Finder, I get the spinning wheel of death for anywhere from five minutes to a day. It does eventually recover. In a reading about.com, it says that this is because…

This is a complicated topic. There are three things to know to get UltraHD (aka 4K) running with your Macs. The main thing is how to get to 60 hertz so it is a reasonable experience using it as a display. The other issue is if Apple supports their “Retina” technology so the fonts are…

It is an interesting to see how the market has stabilized for computer monitors, the 27″ 2500×1400 category has stabilized and the new UltraHD are not quite affordable yet. So here are some choices. Going through  Anandtech and TNTCentral as technical site, then  Amazon customer ratings for reliability and having a quick over from Wirecutter…

We have so many of these little AA and AAAs around it is incredible to me that we ever need to buy any new ones. But sadly, the cupboard is bear (and we want to get these for work as well). So what to get? The LaCrosse BC-700 is a terrific battery charger. Relatively expensive…

I’ve had my Speck Smartflex Case for a month now and I have to say it is super convenient and I haven’t lost my wallet. The main things that are sad are that it completely hides the very nice gold iPhone underneath and you have to be careful with just three cards. But it is…

LensRentals.com – Good Times with Bad Filters. Is a great example of how filters affect image quality. Most folks I know don’t put a filter on top of the lense. I put them on all of mine because one scratch and your $$$s lense is well not so nice. In terms of brands, I’ve been…

Wow, it is always complicated (and rewarding to get points). Looking for the superb Canon 15×50 IS binoculars. The lowest price is on Amazon, but if you shop a little with Chase Rewards Mall, you can find them with 1 extra point (worth about 2 cents per dollar) on Rakuten. But on Merrill Lynch Mall,…

We are using Git’s version of Markdown for most of our documents. A big advantage over a regular Word file is that this is easy to diff and edit and manage. But while the syntax is nice, it certainly isn’t WYSIWYG. It would be nice to find something that is and is free. Here are…

The latest iMovie appears to hate NAS drives. It looks like Apple is now checking to make sure this is a true Apple file system (why???!). In any case, if you want to use a NAS or something else, you have to hack through this workaround: 1. Create a custom .dmg file that lives on…

This is a terrific VPN. It costs $39 per year and it works on iOS and Macs perfectly. Seems extremely fast as well. Their own application seems a bit buggy, but the Tunnelblick which is an open source VPN works great. You do have to download the beta to get it to run on Mac…

The Sony RX-100 seems to have started a trend. Amazingly high quality 1″ sensors. Now the Mark III has an EVF and a much faster lense, but others are catching up: Lumix LX8. Rumors about a 1 inch sensor compact and fixed lens Panasonic LX8 camera are floating around the web for weeks now. And…

The 8×32 Leica’s really are magnificent. They are tiny and easy to carry on a day hike. The 8×26 Vortex are perfect for taking to the Opera or for ultralight backpacking. But what if you really want to see what is happening during a sailing regatta. The traditional method is to use a tripod and…

Yes you can get a massive case for your dSLR, but if you are camping and hiking, the Sony RX100 Mark III sure makes a lot of sense. It is tiny, but has a 1″ sensor and amazing 24-70 F/1.8-2.8 lens. But what if you are looking to spend time on the water, but then…

OK, just spent eight days watching some incredible regatta and racing. Here are notes on real world use of equipment: 1. Trusty old Canon 5D2 and 100-400 F/4-F/5.6. This is an old lens now, but if you use if properly, you definitely get good results. Shooting boats a mile or more away is one of…

After two years of trying to make things work, things have come together, but XBMC does connect to MythTV properly. And it can see the MythTV recordings and even works for its recording and tags them. MythTV also works basically well with an ip-based HD Home Run Prime. The main open bugs are: It will…

Well, here are some of the cool facts for this week. It is literally raining amazing cameras as everyone is making the transition to 4K and the low end gets better, so here are the cameras to drool over: Sony RX-100 Mark III. For $800, this has got to be pretty much the perfect camera…

You can’t really be a good developer if you ever have to use the mouse. I can do this for vi (yuck!), but not for sublime, so here goes. BTW, this page is broken because you can’t just copy and paste. As http://hackaddict.blogspot.com/2007/04/how-to-print-apple-command-key-symbol.html explains, here is a map and the unicode mapping is http://macbiblioblog.blogspot.com/2005/05/special-key-symbols.html And…

I just love these glasses. They cost a fortune at $239 list, but with the start of summer, you can get some good memorial day sales. REI. $175 or 20% for the Polarchromic (variable based on sun 13-20% light transmission). On the Bank of America site, you get 3 extra point per dollar, (worth 5-8%)…

Wow, I love eBay there are so many of these cameras around and there are quite a few that are refurbished and even have guarantees. Pacific Rim Camera seems like a good seller. They have 44K ratings (?!!) and specialize in vintage equipment. Plus, they tell you exactly what works and doesn’t work. The SR-T…

ARgh, why does Apple have to make simple things so hard?! If you only want a piece of a song then using Garageband ’11 (aka release 10.0, isn’t that confusing!), here is what you have to do: Change to time mode, so you can see lengths, click on the very center “LCD” display on the…

Grey screen in iTunes when playing…: Apple Support Communities. I truly hate copy protection. Basically if you are controlling your home theater Mac with remote desktop protocol, iTunes will just show a grey screen without an error message because it violates the copy protection scheme. Yuck. Yuck!!!!!